In January 2014, a group of Africans from many physical, spiritual, and political locations began conversations around the deteriorating state of our Continent, the fundamentalisms that divide us and the multiple forms of violence that harm us. Initially spurred by…

Some states and other actors are increasingly claiming that ”traditional values” should take precedence over universal human rights for all. In addition ”cultural practices” are used to limit the rights and freedom of women who do not given any say…

African groups call for the African Union to urgently respond to gender and sexuality rights violations in Africa, and particularly to anti-gay laws recently passed in Uganda and Nigeria As African civil society organisations whose members live and work to…

MESSAGE FROM THE OFFICE OF THE VICE-CHANCELLOR AND PRINCIPAL DATE: MONDAY, 3 MARCH 2014 STATEMENT FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND PERTAINING TO ANTI-HOMOSEXUALITY LEGISLATION IN AFRICA The University of the Witwatersrand notes with dismay and concern recent legislation in…

From Center for Women’s Global Leadership by Bernedette Muthien, South Africa In 1993, the year of the germinal UN conference in Vienna, the first President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, affirmed that all freedoms (and hence oppressions) are interdependent. This…

In 2012 there were 10 murders of black lesbians, gays and transgender people in South Africa. In Uganda, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill which includes the death penalty and makes LGBTI people and anyone or organisation that supports or helps them, into…

Kaiama – December 1998 Kaiama is a small town in Western Ijaw, about half an hour’s drive from Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa State. Historically Kaiama is famous for being the birth place of Major Isaac Adaka Boro, an Ijaw…

Today [anniversary of the Battle of Vertieres , 1803 in the war for independence] marks the second of a series of planned street protests against the government of Michel Martelly. The protest are organized by Fòs Patriotik ou Respè Konstitsyon…

During his campaign for presidency of Haiti, Michel Martelly made education was of his priorities. Once elected he quickly established the “Program for Universal Free and Obligatory Education (Programme de scolarisation universelle gratuite et obligatoire – PSUGO)” PSUGO was supposed…

For many of my generation in the seventies, Stuart Hall was just such a figure. In those heady, mono – cultural days, he was one of the few people of colour we saw on television who wasn’t crooning, dancing or running. I loved all the athletes and singers and dancers too but when you are a black teenage bookworm in seventies West London, let’s just say a public intellectual of colour disseminating ideas on television offered other more immediate compensations.

There are two related issues in this matter. One that of Reynold Georges, is about evicting specifically 300 families from an area of Camp Acra & Adoquin with a view to evicting all 32,000 residents [6000 families] plus the fate of all remaining camps and this is where the focus needs to be. As Chanjem Leson write on their website, they have a plan for the housing of all camp Acra & Adoquin and a means for them to create their own income generation projects. The second issue is that of persecution of human rights lawyers and camp activists.

From the Mail & Guardian, Phumi Mtetwa discusses Nelson Mandela’s role in facilitating LGBTI rights in South Africa through encouraging dialogue. However his contribution fell short as failed upset the social and economic structures at the core of inequality. “Oliver…

Late on 3 July, a number of civics in Egypt including the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies described the mass uprising as â€œtantamount to a genuine popular referendum by which the majority of Egyptians rejected all policies seeking to undermine rights and liberties in the name of empowering a single political faction to monopolise state institutions, undermine the rule of law and judicial bodies, disregard court orders, harass and prosecute political opponents, and restrict the media and freedom of opinion and expression.â€

It started as a one year project and ended up taking us three years but finally Hakima and I are able to announce the publication of the Queer African Reader published by Fahamu Books. REVIEWS A richness of voices, a…

Sexuality and Social Justice in Africa: Rethinking Homophobia and Forging Resistance by Marc Epprecht The persecution of people in Africa on the basis of their assumed or perceived homosexual orientation has received considerable coverage in the popular media in recent years….

UPDATE President Aristide today held a press conference in which he announced that Lavalas’s participation in the next elections – mobilization begins! Two years after his March 2011 return to Haiti, former President and Fanmi Lavalas leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide made…

I have a general wariness around national and international days which are set aside to remind us of a particular issue or celebration such as the Day of the Child, Human Rights Day, Water Day, Day Against Homophobia and International…

Peter Hallward, author of “Damming the Flood:Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment”. Reframes the narrative of Haiti as disaster and the problem as one of development. Rather he argues that the real issue is one of political sovereignty, popular…